I’ve recently gotten back into some retro Nintendo gaming. I had the NES, SNES and N64 growing up, and even though I have the consoles and games kicking around, I prefer the emulator experience on today’s modern TVs. Upconverting analog signals to HD looks too muddy, whereas emulated games are at least sharper – albeit still blocky due to the low resolution.
So when I was looking for a controller that I could use for all three systems’ games, I decided to look for an N64 version. Doing some research, I found that not all N64 third party controllers are created equal. The particular point of contention is the analog stick, which many execute with only an up/down/left/right differentiation. This one purports to have a “true” analog stick, and in playing games like Wave Race 64, I seem to get that precise control I’m looking for. It works out of the box with my Windows 7 PC and pretty much every emulator I’ve used. The build quality isn’t up to par with the honest-to-God Nintendo controllers of old – there are USB-to-controller interfaces you can use your old controllers with – but I find it to be of reasonable quality. I’d expect it to stand up well over time but maybe not if used too heavily or banged around in storage.
Overall, very happy with it, and loving all my old Nintendo favorites again!
